Breathe
by starbuckmeggie
Summary: Inhale. Exhale. Don't fight it.
1. Chapter 1

"You've got this, Donna!"

I can feel her shake her head, but she doesn't say anything. She _can't_ say anything.

"Breathe, Donna—don't forget to breathe."

She lets out a choked gasp; not enough to actually take in any air.

"Breathe, baby," I whisper in her ear, and she finally lets out a low, strangled moan. Her fingernails dig into my arm, surely drawing blood. I'm not going to complain. I have no place to complain. Compared to what she's going through, a little bloodshed on my end is nothing.

"Keep pushing, Donna!" the doctor exclaims, her voice muffled by the face mask.

"I can't," Donna whimpers, shaking her head again. I bury my face in her neck, trying to be strong for her. I don't think I'm succeeding. I don't know _how_ to be strong for her like this. She's in agony, and I think I'm going to be the one to fall over. My wife is in labor and I don't think I'm going to survive it.

Hell, I can't even be with her the way a guy is supposed to be with the woman delivering his child. I tried—God knows I tried. I went to all the Lamaze classes with her and completed them successfully. I even managed to sit through several childbirth videos which were gross and horrifying in their own right, but I didn't get excessively squeamish.

However, in the delivery room at the hospital—even before that, when she started clutching her stomach and doubling over in pain—I found that I just couldn't watch it. I hate myself for it, too. All I want is to be there for her as she pushes our baby into the world and I feel like I'm failing miserably. I can't see her like that, though. I can't see her body practically tearing open and all the… _stuff_ …that goes along with it. Every time she cries out, my vision gets fuzzy on the edges. I tried sitting behind her to do that whole supporting her thing so I could help her push, but I think I actually _did_ pass out for a few seconds. Standing next to her wasn't much better because I could see all the clamps and scissors and syringes. Helping to hold one of her legs up was out of the question.

I hate myself. I'm not at all squeamish at the sight of blood or surgical instruments in general. My mental state wasn't spectacular at the time, but I had no trouble looking at and dressing my mangled hand after I put it through a window. I was able to watch the doctor give me stitches. As I was recovering from open heart surgery, I had no shortage of blood and ooze, both on me and on my dressings, and I never felt lightheaded. When it comes to Donna, though…all bets are off. Maybe it's because she's been so rarely injured that I haven't been able to develop coping techniques. More likely, it's because I love her so much that anything that so much as smells of her being hurt in anyway sends me into an emotional tailspin.

"Josh…" she moans, and I tighten my grip on her. I'm with her—of course I'm with her. I couldn't abandon her. Despite my body's very negative reaction to the whole process, I really do want to be here when our child is born. The only solution I had after everything else failed was to sit next to her on her bed and face the opposite direction. It's not ideal in the slightest but it keeps me in the room. I can't see any of the violent looking things happening to her body. The constant yelling and crying from Donna doesn't ease my mind much, but considering the reason she's yelling and crying, I'm doing my best to stay cognizant for her. I have my arm wrapped around her chest so she can bear down on me, and her hands have been clutching onto me almost the entire time.

"You can do this," I answer in her ear. "You're the strongest person in the world."

Her fingers dig into my arm again, another contraction sweeping through her. "I hate you," she gasps. Her entire body goes rigid. "You're never touching me again. _I hate you_."

I try not to take it personally. We were warned by a million different sources that women in labor tend to say some horrific things, and justifiably so. Donna swore up and down that she'd never say anything like that. I've always assumed she would. Still, that doesn't mean anything prepares you for your wife telling you she hates you, no matter how understandable the circumstances are.

"I love you so much," I answer, bracing myself so she can push against me. I turn my head slightly so I can see her, my insides clenching. Her face is dark red, her eyes screwed shut in pain. She's gritting her teeth so hard I'm surprised she hasn't broken them. All this to bring another person into the world? What the hell were we thinking?

What feels like an eternity later, the doctor tells Donna to relax and she collapses against me, panting. "If you really loved me," she says weakly, "you'd do this for me."

"You have no idea how much I wish I could," I answer sincerely. "You know I'd be terrible at it, though. I would have given up at the first bout of morning sickness." She chuckles quietly, her breathing still labored. "I know you can do this. You can do anything."

"This is so hard."

"I know, honey. I know." I don't know—not really—but it's all I can offer her. I know how hard it _looks_ , and if it looks that hard, I can only imagine what it's like on her end.

She's been so amazing throughout the entire pregnancy, though. She handled the first trimester with the morning sickness and exhaustion and weird cravings like a champ. She never shirked her duties at work even though I freely admit that I would have. There's no way I could have handled nearly four solid months of puking and falling asleep on my feet and still manage to do my job efficiently. I would have called out of work for nine months straight, and after watching my wife put her body through hell and still manage to function as a person on a daily basis, I'm even more inclined to find a way to fix our healthcare system so that women who want to just focus on being pregnant can have that option, without relying on someone else around to support her.

I know one thing for sure—there are not many things in this world more beautiful than a pregnant Donna Moss-Lyman. I think she's only going to be more beautiful when she's actually holding our baby in her arms. I'd never given much thought to pregnancy before it happened to us, and therefore it never occurred to me how much a woman's body can change during the process. It's truly astonishing, and not always in the good way. I mean, her hips and pelvis actually shifted. I can't even imagine how much that sort of thing hurts. She's had a living creature growing and moving inside of her for more than forty weeks at this point, not that most of the outside world knew about that for a while. She didn't start to show to the world at large until well into the fifth month—something about her height and the way the baby was positioned—and we kept it mostly to us up until then. First time parents and all that. Of course, our friends knew—we told them eventually, at least. It wasn't so much out of superstition that we kept quiet about it, but more that we just liked having it be our little secret. Helen was the first person to figure it out; she claims it was the way Donna was standing one day—back arched, hands pressed to her lower back—that made all the pieces fall into place. After that, we figured we ought to tell everyone else.

But even after the people closest to us knew, we made an effort to not let the general public know. The interest in us has died down quite a bit in the last couple of years, but that doesn't mean we don't have the occasional rogue reporter trying to storm the gates in an attempt to unearth some scandal in the Moss/Lyman household. The last thing we wanted was a large group of overzealous journalists harassing Donna when she was exhausted and, at times, near the point of collapse. I'd told her many times by that point that if anyone did anything to stress her out or in any way threaten our unborn child, I wouldn't be held accountable for my actions.

Suddenly, all those thinly veiled threats I've gotten from my father-in-law over the years started to make sense. Donna's dad is a generally nice guy, but he makes it known to all of his kids' mates that he won't tolerate anyone doing something to cause distress to his family. I had no idea what the gender was of our baby—still don't—but I don't really care. Anyone hurts it or my wife, I'll hurt them worse.

Of course, though, the media started to ask questions eventually. While Donna didn't look super pregnant, she definitely started to look different. She was doing that whole "glowing" thing. She claims it was from sweating constantly as she carried around a fetus, whether because of changes it causes in her body temperature or because of her constant nausea, but all I could see what some crazy, powerful light shining from within. Her body changed, even if she didn't immediately look pregnant—hell, she didn't even have to change a lot of her wardrobe at first. Mostly, she just wore slightly roomier shirts or more jackets. Still, a few people started catching on, and then started to make noise. I don't know why they cared so much, but it started to be a big deal that we were having a baby but not telling anyone. I don't even remember what event it was when a few reporters and photographers accosted my wife. She was wearing one of those dresses that seems to make everyone look knocked up, and someone finally demanded to know why she was hiding her pregnancy. Donna, bless her, just smiled beatifically and ran her hands over her belly, pulling the dress tight enough so that there wasn't a doubt in the world that she was lugging around a little Lyman, and said, "I'm not hiding anything." Then she just walked away. The upside was that from then on, I could put my hands all over her stomach in public, getting to feel the baby every time in kicked and moved. As predicted, it made a bit of a story for a few weeks, but no one could manage to create a scandal out of it. It turns out that two consenting, married adults having a child doesn't raise a lot of eyebrows.

"Ready to push again?"

The doctor's voice pulls me out of my reverie and I look at Donna, trying to gauge her reaction. I know that it's really a rhetorical question—she doesn't have much choice in the matter. The baby is really in control at this point. I glance down at her bare stomach, somehow startled to see it moving and shifting, the skin and muscles tightening and flexing as our kid tries to make its way into the world.

"No," she answers weakly, shaking her head.

"Yes, you are," I whisper into her hair. "You can do this."

"Go to hell," she growls at me, practically transforming into the embodiment of fury before my eyes.

The doctor gives me an amused look and shrugs—I'm sure she's seen this before with all the babies she's delivered during her career. It's super fun.

Not that I'm faulting Donna's reaction to anything. I can't begin to imagine what this feels like for her—though she did paint the oh-so-lovely and graphic picture of shoving a watermelon out of a nostril. She's been freaking me out since we got to the hospital, though. Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I thought she'd get to her room and park in a bed until it was time for her to push, which would be maybe a couple of hours after we checked in. Oh, boy, was _I_ wrong. She's been like a caged animal, constantly prowling around her room and the hospital corridors, pacing, grabbing onto railings as she tried breathe deeply while bent over, dropping into a squat suddenly as a contraction overtook her. She's been shifting between insane mama lion mode and back into the Donna I've always known, able to carry on normal conversations with me, the staff, and any of the other patients roaming the hospital corridors that stopped by early on. The doctors and nurses said it was completely fine and natural for her to want to move around or to be restless, and since she wasn't all the way dilated, it wasn't huge concern. Easy for them to say. They didn't have to watch her actually crawl on the floor as she moaned in agony.

And clothing! She's been refusing to wear much of anything. She started off in a hospital gown then stripped down to a tank top and her underwear. It wasn't long before she'd taken everything off, claiming to not give a damn because it felt like her body was ripping apart and she couldn't handle clothing. Eventually, she wound up wearing some band thing around her chest to support her breasts, which have been growing at an exponential rate over the last couple of months. I managed to talk her into wearing her gown in the hallway, but only barely. She told me that all the other people on our floor were going through the same thing and could give a damn what she was wearing. Even now, the only thing she has on is that little band. The medical staff just looked at me like I'd sprouted wings and a tail when I expressed concern, letting me know that her comfort was the most important part, and that it wasn't at all uncommon for women to give birth in nothing at all. I shouldn't be surprised that I'm excessively ignorant when it comes to birthing practices. I only learned today that some women give birth in pools or tubs. That just weirds me out.

"You have to push anyway," the doctor says, patting Donna's knee. "The baby's crowning."

Donna's eyes fly open, and even I stare at the doctor in shock. That means she can see the baby's head. Oh, my God…

Even though she's wearing a mask, I can see the doctor grin at me, winking. "Want to take a peek, Dad?"

I shake my head vigorously, but a second later I force myself to scoot down toward my wife's hips. I don't know why I'm compelled to do it. It's probably going to make me pass out. But I also don't think that I want to live with knowing I didn't at least try.

I angle my head, my eyes growing wide. This looks _nothing_ like I'm used to. I'm thoroughly in love with my wife and have spent many hours exploring and studying her body, even during the pregnancy—at least when she'd let me—so I'm very familiar with what she usually looks like. But this…now…there's the actual top of a head coming out of her. Knowing this is what happens and seeing it happen are two entirely different things.

"Oh, my God, Donna, how are you doing this?" I ask, horrified. My brain can't wrap around it. How can a person have another person this size coming out of them? More to the point, how can either of them survive it? It looks so…so…traumatizing.

" _Shut. Up_ ," she groans, her body hunching forward as she pushes. I can see the baby's head shift. I hear a ringing in my ears. "Do _not_ faint," Donna says, and I look up to find her staring at me beseechingly. "Get back up here. I'm not doing this alone."

"Donna…there's a person _exiting_ you!"

She grits her teeth, her face turning red as her body tenses and stomach tightens. I swear I can see the baby moving beneath her skin. Maybe I can. " _Josh!_ " she groans. " _I know what's happening to me if you don't shut up so help me God I will kill you where you stand now GET UP HERE!_ " I'm actually a little amazed that she said all that in one long breath as she was attempting to breathe through the pain, and I don't hesitate to do what she says, resuming my position by her side. I want to encourage her. I want to tell her that she's completely amazing and that she's actually a warrior and that I don't understand how anyone can see a woman do this and still consider them to be the weaker sex. I couldn't do this. I can barely be present for it. But I don't know how to say something that won't enrage her.

She clutches onto me, bearing down, her mouth open in a silent scream. I don't know if I've ever felt more helpless in my life. My wife is in excruciating pain and there is absolutely nothing I can do to share that burden.

"Breathe, Donna!" one of the nurses yells. "You _have_ to _breathe_!"

Hoping she won't eviscerate me, I breathe softly in her ear, using the techniques we learned in Lamaze, quietly saying "inhale" and "exhale" when it's time. Fortunately, she only focuses on the actual breathing, finally taking deep breaths as the contraction starts to abate.

"I'm never doing this again," she mumbles, slumping against me. "Please…please…don't make me."

I shake my head vigorously. "That's fine. Anything you want. I promise. This is our only kid."

She sniffles, rubbing her face against my shoulder, and I feel my insides twist. Now she's crying. On top of all the other things happening to her right now, she's crying. I didn't think it'd ever be possible for me to regret sex with Donna, but right now, I'm having serious doubts.

"I feel like I'm splitting in two," she moans.

I rub her back. "That's normal," another nurse says, casually checking Donna's vitals. I glower at her over my wife's head, but it doesn't faze her.

"I can't push any more. I'm done. I'm not doing this. The baby can just stay in there." She cringes, and I can tell another contraction is on its way, but she just shakes her head. "No."

"I don't think it works like that, honey," I whisper, trying to work the tight muscles at the base of her spine. She just reels back, practically spitting at me.

"I don't _care_ what you think! _You_ did this to me!" She cringes again, one of her hands clutching her stomach as the skin bunches up again. "I hate you!" she half yells, half sobs. "I hate you, I hate you, I—"

"Donna!" the doctor exclaims sternly, standing up just a little from between her legs. "You can yell all you want to. I encourage it. It helps. But right now I need you to focus on getting this baby out of you. It's happening one way or another but it's going to be a hell of a lot easier if you stop fighting it. I need you to _push_. Stop being mean to Josh. You were an active participant in this blessed event so it's just as much your fault as his, but right now this baby doesn't care. The baby just wants to be born, so _work with me_."

Donna stares at the doctor, eyes wide and full of tears. "It hurts," she says weakly.

"I _know_ it does," Dr. Koger answers not unsympathetically. "I know you're tired. This is the hardest part. You just have to stop fighting it." Donna nods, swallowing heavily. "And let Josh help. You've told me yourself how much he's done for you during all this—don't push him away now." Donna nods again, tightening her grip on my arm. "Okay—I need you to _push._ Push, Donna."

Donna grits her teeth again, sitting forward as much as she can. I put my other hand on her back, trying to help keep her up. "Breathe," I remind her, and for once, she doesn't threaten my life. She just lets out a long, slow breath that trails off into a low wail.

"Good girl," the doctor says, resuming her position. "Just a couple more big pushes, okay? The head's almost out and once the shoulders come out, it's all over." Donna pushes again with all her might, one hand holding onto my arm, the other gripping the railing of her bed.

"Stop," Dr. Koger demands. "Breathe again. Take a few seconds. Let the next contraction tell you what to do." What the hell? We're _paying_ this woman for advice like this?

Donna leans against me again, and I push her damp hair off her sweaty forehead. Most of it is pulled up into a big knot on the top of her head, but considering she's been essentially running a marathon for the last ten hours, some of it has understandably escaped. One of the nurses hands me an ice bag and I press it against Donna's neck and back and face, hoping to help in some way.

"Thank you," she mumbles a few seconds before she makes a face. "Oh, God."

"Breathe and push, Donna," the doctor commands. "Breathe and push. You're almost done."

Donna breathes, yelling out at every exhale—long, mournful wails, sounds I didn't know anyone could make. I focus on her profile, telling her to breathe, trying to will every bit of strength I have into her exhausted body.

"Head's out!" the doctor exclaims excitedly. "Keep pushing! _Keep pushing!_ "

Donna leans forward more. Her body is so tense it feels like granite beneath my fingers. She yells louder than ever. I just want this to be over. I can't handle Donna in this kind of pain anymore. I don't—

"Stop pushing," the doctor says suddenly. I glance over my shoulder to see the doctor working busily between Donna's legs, but I'd swear she's grinning. "You two want to meet your baby?"

Without waiting for an answer, the doctor starts to lift her arms and time stops. Everything goes in slow motion. I can hear my heart thumping. A small, gooey mass appears, eyes shut, mouth open, looking like nothing I've ever seen. All I can do is stare.

"Oh, my God," I hear Donna whisper, jolting me back into regular time. "Josh…"

"Congratulations," Dr. Koger says, standing up. "It's a girl."

"A girl," I repeat, dumbfounded. "We have a daughter?"

The doctor just grins, putting the baby on Donna's chest, whose hands automatically come up to hold her in place. I quickly shift my position until I'm facing the same direction as my wife; all the better to stare at this tiny creature. For her part, Donna still looks shocked, as if she can't quite register what's happening. I know the feeling.

"You want to cut the cord, Dad?" someone asks softly, and scissors appear in my line of vision. I don't particularly—I want to stare at my daughter—but I grab them anyway, cutting through the spot the nurse indicates, only sort of registering the strange sensation and how much it should be freaking me out to be cutting a piece of my wife and child.

The baby twitches a little, her tiny face scrunching up just before she lets out a loud wail. It's the strangest sound in the world. It's not quite human, but I wouldn't begin to know how to describe it. That's all it takes, though, because Donna starts crying, too—weeping, really. She runs her fingers over our slimy, naked baby, checking all the fingers and toes, making sure that everything's in place.

"It's our baby, Josh!" she exclaims, looking at me in wonder for half a second before she goes back to the squalling baby. "It's okay. I know. Mommy's crying, too. It's been a big day."

As soon as Donna says "Mommy," I'm a goner. I press my face into her shoulder as tears of my own fill my eyes. I'm suddenly completely overwhelmed by a love I've never known for this tiny, beautiful, perfect creature in Donna's arms. I feel like I'm being punched from the inside out. I reach out and run my fingers over the baby's arm, amazed at how _real_ she is. She's been such an abstract for me during the pregnancy. Of course, I've loved feeling her move and kick, and I talked and sang to Donna's belly as often as she'd let me, but I didn't realize until this point just how much I _didn't_ know my child, how unreal she felt. Her tiny hands flail and I carefully push my index finger into her palm, falling apart all over again when her even tinier, delicate fingers closer around me.

I will do anything for this little person. Absolutely anything. There is no request too outlandish, no wish too impossible for my little girl.

"We need to get her cleaned up," one of the nurses says softly, her hands already gently lifting the baby from Donna's arms. I watch in distress as our tiny bundle gets bustled off to the other side of the room. Donna makes a noise next to me.

"She'll be back in a second," Dr. Koger reassures, repositioning herself between Donna's legs. "She just needs to be weighed and measured and wrapped up." Donna's stomach twitches a couple of times and the doctor stands up a moment later. I feel all the blood rush out of my head at the mass of… _goo_ she's holding. "The placenta, Josh," she tells me in an exasperated voice. "You might want to look away."

I shudder and turn my head, pressing my lips to Donna's temple. "You're so amazing," I whisper. Hot tears still trickle down my cheeks as I feel a rush of absolute pride in my wife and her ability to produce life. Our daughter is still testing out her lungs, wailing indignantly as her small army of nurses checks her over to make sure she's all right.

" _She's_ amazing," Donna answers, staring at the baby. "Have you ever seen anything so perfect?"

"Only once," I confirm. "But that was a million years ago in a makeshift office in New Hampshire."

She turns her head to me quickly, a fresh set of tears welling up in her eyes even as she smiles. "I love you," she tells me, tilting her face toward mine.

That's certainly a far cry from the things she was shouting not five minutes ago, but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "I love you more," I answer, pressing my lips to hers.

We part a few seconds later, pressing our foreheads together. "Thank you for giving me something so amazing."

I can only laugh a little before I press my lips to hers again. "I just contributed my DNA. You did the hard stuff."

The baby's crying gets louder suddenly and we look up before we can get into a one-up contest over who loves who more. The nurse smiles at us, passing the tiny bundle of blankets back to Donna, who cuddles our daughter to her chest once more. My heart actually clenches at the sight, choking me up. Donna was meant to be a mother. She was meant to be many things, really, and has succeeded in a lot of them, but she looks completely serene as she holds our child tenderly.

"Are you still upset, sweetheart?" she coos, rocking the baby ever-so-slightly. "I don't blame you. That was hard, wasn't it? It's okay. It's okay. Mommy's here. I'm not going to let anything hurt you." Amazingly, or maybe not, all things considered, the baby starts to calm down, her cries tapering off as Donna talks to her. I reach out and run my finger carefully over her tiny, soft cheek.

"Do we have a name?" the nurse asks, smiling at us gently. I look at Donna, tilting my head just a little as her eyes meet mine. We've talked about it, of course, and made a list of about a thousand different names, though nothing we could settle on completely. Part of it was because we decided to wait to find out the gender, and part of it was because we didn't want to get our hearts set on a name that might end up feeling wrong. Donna wisely pointed out that we could meet our baby and find that none of the names that we loved could work, so it might be better to wait.

"You pick," I tell her softly, not wanting to disturb my suddenly quiet daughter. It's only fair. She carried the baby around for all those months, and went through the hard part of giving birth. I'm sure if I absolutely hate the name she decides on, I can say something, but I think Donna's more than earned the right to name our child.

She smiles down at the baby, pulling her closer to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Rebecca," she finally says.

"Rebecca?" the nurse confirms, smiling at us. "That's beautiful." I just nod, because suddenly that's exactly who she is.

Donna nods, too, grinning from ear to ear. "Yeah; Rebecca. Rebecca Joan Lyman."

"Moss-Lyman," I immediately correct. We'd settled on giving our unborn child—and any future children—just my last name some time ago, but hearing Donna say it didn't feel right. The baby—Rebecca—is both of us, and she should have both of our names. Donna's choice of middle name hits me a few long seconds later. "Wait…Rebecca Joan?"

She sniffles a little, running her fingers carefully over Rebecca's tiny head. "Yeah. I want her to have a piece of her aunt with her at all times, and when she asks about her aunt Joanie, you can tell her all the wonderful things you remember about your big sister, and she can feel connected to her."

I can't help it—I actually sob for a few seconds, burying my face in Donna's neck. I wasn't prepared for that. Joan only came up as a name option once or twice months ago, and I truly hadn't put much thought into using it. Most of the time, I don't miss my sister in a real way. I've gotten so used to her being gone that it's just a part of me. Sometimes it's a very faint, very dull ache, and sometimes it's so sharp that it feels like she just died yesterday, but it's still not something I think about usually in anything other than an abstract way. It's been too many years. Donna definitely never had the chance to meet her; hell, Donna wasn't even born yet when Joanie died. It means everything to me that Donna wants to pass my sister on to our daughter in this small way.

"Rebecca Joan Moss-Lyman?" the nurse repeats, and we both nod. "Perfect. What a sweet name. Now, what do you say we get you settled in to your room so you can get some rest?"

* * *

This one has a second chapter that will posted within the next few days. This was just one of those ideas I couldn't get away from. Hope everyone likes schlock.


	2. Chapter 2

The three of us are cuddled together on Donna's hospital bed. We've been like that for close to an hour. I don't know how Donna hasn't collapsed by now, but she's just contentedly holding the baby, a blissful look on her face. Rebecca, however, has spent most of that time sleeping. Donna says she's probably overwhelmed right now. Rebecca's not the only one.

I tighten my grip on Donna's shoulders, kissing her cheek. Truly, the more I think about it, the more amazed I am at what she just pulled off.

"Look at our little parasite," Donna says reverently, but I just groan.

"Donna…c'mon."

"What?"

"Don't refer to our kid as a parasite."

"That's what a fetus _is_ , Josh."

"Donna."

"I love her. I love her more with every second that passes. I love her so much I can't see straight. She's the most beautiful thing to ever exist. That doesn't change the fact that she hung around inside of me for nine months, taking every last bit of energy, strength, nourishment and sanity that I possessed, giving me nothing but backaches and heartburn and stretch marks in return. She took the calcium from my teeth, Josh. _From my teeth_. If that's not the definition of a parasite, I don't know what is."

"Yeah, well…" It's really hard to argue with that. "Just…don't say that in public."

"I'm not interested in romanticizing pregnancy."

"Fine. You don't have to. But do you want one or both of us to wind up on the Sunday morning shows as we're taken to task for calling our daughter a parasite? Because I sure as hell don't."

She makes a face at me but shrugs, pushing the blanket away from Rebecca's face as she looks at her adoringly. "Fine. I'd rather spend my Sunday mornings at home with the two of you anyway. Much better company. If the world at large wants to be ignorant about what your unborn child really does to you—"

"Thank you," I interrupt, rolling my eyes. We're silent for a while as we stare at the baby; I'm amazed to find that something so tiny and, in a very technical sense, uninteresting can hold my attention for so long, but she's utterly fascinating. Her tiny pink face is still a little wrinkled, though Donna promises it'll gain its proper shape before we know it. One of her itty bitty hands refuses to stay tucked into her standard issue blanket, and I'll admit to actually moving the blanket out of the way at one point so I could see her little foot, which I stroked reverently until I was sure it felt cold and covered it up again.

"I love you," I whisper to Donna, pressing my lips against the side of her head. "I can't believe what you did."

She laughs dryly. "Honestly, I can't believe it, either. How was she living inside me? It's all so surreal now."

I reach out and carefully stroke my finger down the baby's delicate little nose; fortunately, she continues to sleep peacefully. "She's perfect. How is that possible?"

Donna shakes her head slowly, looking at our daughter in wonder. "I have no idea." Donna shifts a little, her body going taut as she stretches for a few seconds. "God, everything hurts. Everything's sore and tired. My insides don't know what to do without someone pummeling them constantly. It's like my body is my own again, but even that's not true because she's going to need me from the outside now." She looks up, smiling at me ruefully. "I feel restless somehow…twitchy. Like I should be pacing the floor. The last thing I want to do, though, is get up and walk around. I'm beyond exhausted."

I give her shoulder a careful squeeze. "Get some sleep," I whisper.

She shakes her head vigorously. "I can't. I don't want to sleep. What if I wake up and she's gone?"

"Donna…"

"What if I wake up and the last few years were just a dream? What if none of this is real?" Her voice cracks and she sniffles, rubbing her face against her arm. "I don't think I could survive it."

I gather her to me as best I can; I want to reassure her, promise her that our life together hasn't been a dream, but then she'll ask me how I know that for sure and, ultimately, I really can't prove it. "Tell you what—if for some reason, the next time you wake up, the clock has reset itself, come to me anyway. I fell in love with you a million years ago, it's not like there was ever a point where I'd look at you and think, 'nah.'"

She laughs, beaming up at me with her tearstained face. "That might be the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

"Then I think I need to work on my verbal skills."

Her eyes go wide for a second and she glances down at Rebecca then back to me. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I've been completely monopolizing our daughter. I haven't let you hold her at all."

A strange, blinding panic fills me. "That's okay. You were the one who did the labor thing so I think you have the right to spend as much time with her as you want."

"Well, I think it's your turn."

My heart takes off at a gallop and I shake my head without realizing it. "I can't."

"You can't? What do you mean you can't? Josh, she's your _daughter_."

"I'll break her!" I exclaim. "You know how clumsy I am! No, I think you should be in charge of holding her for a while."

She lifts her eyebrow at me curiously. "You want me to do all the work?" she asks, no malice in her voice. Actually, I think I can hear some amusement.

"No, of course not. I just don't think it's a good idea to trust me with her yet." Honestly, I haven't been around a lot of babies, and I've held them even less, and certainly never one this new. It's not that I'm opposed to children at all—obviously, especially seeing as how I now have the most perfect child in the world—but I just haven't had much time for them. I've kept myself busy with work for most of my life, and that usually doesn't include a lot of newborns and infants, or time to seek such creatures out. I saw pictures of Toby's twins when they were first born, but it was some time before any of us got a chance to meet them. CJ's son was a couple of months old when I finally met him, and even then, I didn't, you know, hang out with him. I held those plastic babies in our birthing classes, but I'm positive that it's not at all the same. I definitely don't think I'm ready for the responsibility of holding our own child. She's too important. There are so many variables.

"Joshua," Donna says, pulling out my not oft used full name, frowning at me. "Do you want to have to explain to Rebecca one day that you refused to hold her just after she was born?"

"Don't you think by that point she'll understand? She'll have had time to get to know me and I think she'll really appreciate my foresight."

"Josh, come here and hold your daughter."

Somewhat reluctantly, I stretch my arms toward her, only to be thwarted by the awkward angle. I sigh and stand up, moving to the other side of Donna's bed. For months, I couldn't wait to get a chance to hold my kid, if nothing else so I could take some of the burden off my wife, but also because I couldn't wait to meet her. Now, it just feels too risky. I _do_ want to hold her, but it just feels like too much of a gamble.

Donna angles the baby toward me and I shift my arms, trying to figure out how best to receive her. Donna places her arms on top of mine and I feel another wave of panic. "Just support her head," she reminds me softly. "And hold her close." Her arms shift carefully from under the baby, leaving me with Rebecca's slight form. All I can do is stare at her in wonder. She is _so tiny_. I never realized just how little seven and a half pounds really is. There is absolutely nothing too her. She's so small it seems like she could get lost in her blanket. I glance over at Donna, who's smiling at us gently, eyes bright with tears, and I feel myself grin from ear to ear. My body relaxes a little as Rebecca molds to me. Despite how new and foreign this all feels, nothing has ever felt more natural. Well, aside from loving Donna.

She's completely perfect. My daughter is absolute perfection.

"How's that feel?" Donna asks.

"I'm never letting her go."

She laughs and shifts on her bed, relaxing against her pillows. I walk around the room for a few minutes, testing out this new sensation before I resume my place next to my wife on her bed. Donna curls into my side, resting her head on my shoulder as her hand strokes carefully over our daughter. I'm still afraid of breaking this tiny creature in my arms, but holding her feels like nothing else ever has. It's incredible. "I feel like I've waited my entire life to meet her," I whisper.

"She was so worth it, you know?" Donna says softly. "The aches and pains and calcium-stealing and loss of sleep and hours of labor. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat."

I look over at my wife in surprise. "You would?"

"In a heartbeat. I'd be pregnant for a full year, or eighteen months…I'd willingly be in labor for weeks if it meant someone like her on the other side. I'll do it again for the possibility of someone else as perfect as her."

It's probably exhaustion, but I'm suddenly a little confused. "But…you said earlier you were never doing this again."

"That was before I met her. None of that matters now."

"Seriously? It doesn't matter?"

She shrugs, sticking her finger against Rebecca's tiny hand, and I grin in response as the baby tightens her grip on her mother. "I've always heard that women forget how horrible and painful child birth is after they meet their baby and…well, they're wrong. I remember every ugly moment of it. But I'd still do it again. The end result far outweighs the rest of it."

"Huh. Okay." I don't know entirely what that means right now. I know she's not talking crazy, but I also know she's exhausted and probably shouldn't be held accountable for what she's saying. It _sounds_ like she's saying she wants another baby already, but maybe I'm misinterpreting that. At the moment, I want what she wants. Not that long ago, she seemed adamant that this was the only one we'd have, and considering how much pain she was in at the time, I was eager to agree. Even now, with a bit of perspective and my beautiful daughter in my arms, I'm still reluctant to agree that Donna should go through that again. I will say, though, that now isn't the time to make decisions like that.

"I said a lot of things earlier that I didn't mean," she says softly, and when I look down at her, she's actively avoiding my gaze. "You know I don't hate you, right? That was just the pain talking."

"It's okay," I promise her.

She looks up at me, her eyes red and watery. "But you _know_ that, right? And I'm so sorry I said it. I just…you wouldn't believe how much everything hurt."

I push myself closer to her; I want to wrap my arm around her, but I'm reluctant to try one-handed baby holding right now. Even though I knew she didn't mean it, I couldn't help the stab to my heart the words caused at the time. I hate that I sort of need to be reassured that she only said the words in the heat of the moment, but…I can be insecure. "Seriously—it's okay. You were completely amazing and I think everything and anything you said at that point was totally justified."

"I love you _so much_."

"I know that." I lean carefully around the baby, pressing my lips to Donna's. "Never doubt that I know that. And never doubt how much I love you, no matter how much you yell at me." Her lip quirks up a little. "But I have to confess something. I've never loved anything the way I love our little girl."

Her eyes fill with tears again, but she nods her head enthusiastically. "I know. It's intense. I love her so much I…think I'm going to throw up."

My eyes widen and I shift away from her just a little. "What?"

"I don't know how else to describe it. It's filling me to the brim. I love her more with every second that passes, and each time I think I'm going to explode with it all, but then my insides find more room, but then it grows and I love her even more. She's only been here for an hour—what's it going to be like tomorrow? In a year? I think my heart is going to cave in. It's too much, you know? But all I want to do is love her more. It's absolutely ridiculous, and no one should be able to feel like this about one tiny little human they barely know."

"I get it," I answer, nodding in understanding. "I do. I mean, I know she's perfect, which seems like it should be impossible because no one's perfect but…she is." I look down at my daughter, still sleeping peacefully in my arms. "She's stunning. She's absolutely breathtaking. I cannot believe I had anything to do with making her. I hate the very notion of her growing up, but I absolutely can't wait to see the person she becomes." My throat closes up a little and I stop talking. There are some things that can't be put into words, and how much I love my child is apparently one of them.

Donna kisses my shoulder, and I know I don't have to say anything more—she's in the same boat. I have no doubt that this moment is the easy part, and as soon we get home, our little Rebecca will unleash holy terror on the Moss/Lyman household. It makes me appreciate the moment even more.

"Hey, Donna?"

"Mmmm?"

"Isn't she supposed to, you know, eat or something?"

Donna chuckles, shifting slowly until she's sitting up again. "Probably. I don't know. I've heard they're supposed to eat right after they're born, but I've also heard that they'll let you know when they're hungry. It's supposed to be good for bonding if we do it right away, and it stimulates her immune and digestive systems…" She lets out a long breath, reaching up to tug her hair out of the bun on top of her head. "I really have no idea. I thought a doctor or nurse would be in here to tell us this stuff."

"I think our armed escorts are deterring that," I answer nodding to where I'm sure a member or two of my detail is standing guard. "Or maybe they're just letting us have some time. Do you think you should try it?"

She shrugs, though she pulls down the strap of the tank top she put on again not long after we returned to our room. "You're gonna have to hand her over."

I make a face but carefully shift the baby back to her mother, stopping myself at the last second from telling her to support the head. Donna knows that. She's the one who told me to do it.

Donna pulls down the band around her chest, and I'm suddenly not sure what to do or where I should look. I've seen her breasts a million times by now, and she's always been a very enthusiastic participant in the attention I like to pay to them, but this is totally different. Our kid is about to receive sustenance from them. This is completely different than all of that. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to stomach this part, either, and I hate myself for it.

"You all right over there?"

I peek down at my wife and child, only able to look at them with one eye. "I have no idea."

"I don't know if you can avoid this part forever. It's not like me being in pain, if that helps."

"I just…I didn't know if I should watch or…"

She lifts her eyebrow at me dubiously. "Josh, this is me feeding our child. Of course you can watch. There's nothing here you haven't seen."

I let out a self-deprecating laugh and take a deep breath. When I open both my eyes, Donna has the baby poised at her chest, waiting for me. "I can do this."

"I don't even know if this is going to work. She might not want to do it."

I frown. "Why wouldn't she want to do it? Doesn't she want to eat?"

"I am in no way an expert at this. I don't know if she'll be into it at all or if we'll have to get a lactation specialist or something." I just barely suppress a shudder at the word "lactation," and feel annoyed with myself for getting weird about it. This kid is going to do things worse than eating and I'm going to need to get over myself if I want to be anything resembling a decent parent.

Still, I can feel myself making a face as Donna pushes the baby to her chest, trying to get Rebecca to respond. She sleeps on. Donna sighs and shifts the bundle, rubbing the baby's belly a little. "C'mon, Becca. Just eat. Don't let Mommy think she's a complete failure."

"Donna," I whisper. "You're not—"

She gives me a look I can't read and goes back to the baby, giving her the tiniest nudge to get her attention. Rebecca smacks her perfect little lips a couple of times and Donna seizes the opportunity, pushing her nipple into the baby's tiny mouth. I swear we both hold our breath as we wait to see what happens. Rebecca's eyes flutter open and she moves her head ever so slightly. Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and suddenly she's completely chowing down. I involuntarily thrust my arm in the air in triumph, this victory better than any election win. I grin down at Donna, whose cheeks are soaked with tears.

"You okay?" I ask, wrapping an arm around her, the other hand going to help support Rebecca's head.

"This is unlike anything else I've ever experienced," Donna says. "I don't know how else to describe it."

We watch in silence for a few minutes as our daughter eats her first meal, utterly fascinated with the entire process. "Becca?" I finally ask quietly, and Donna gives me a one-armed shrug.

"It came out. Felt kinda right."

I roll it around in my head for a few moments, not terribly surprised that my wife is correct. "Rebecca" is definitely our daughter's name, but "Becca" just seems to fit. "Becca it is," I confirm.

Donna laughs softly. "You don't have to call her that. I can't even promise that I'll call her that."

"I like it." We're silent for another few minutes, our baby showing no signs of slowing down. "You know…we have some calls to make."

Donna's head whips up, her eyes huge. "Oh, my God. I completely forgot about calling our families."

"Gee, I can't imagine why." I give her a quick kiss and stand up, stretching my protesting muscles as I grab our phones from the pile of our stuff on a chair. At the last second, I also grab the camera we crammed in there, too, and point it at my wife. "Smile?"

She looks up at me, her lips curving up—she's clearly exhausted, she's disheveled, she actually looks like she just ran a 10k in the rain in uphill while pulling a broken down bus…and she's never looked more stunning. She looks serene, truly as if this was where she's meant to be. It makes my heart stop. Donna holding my daughter to her breast is the most beautiful sight I've ever had the privilege to see, and I waste no more time before I capture the moment forever.

"We'll need one with you, too," she tells me as I resume my place next to her.

"Maybe one of the nurses'll take a few family shots for us." I look at the phones in my hands, sighing. "How are we going to do this?"

She shrugs, resituating the baby so she can keep eating. "Call your mom on one phone and my parents on the other and put them both on speaker. They all knew I'd be going into labor at any moment so I'm sure they've been waiting for this call for days now, if not weeks."

I nod and start to dial—there's probably going to be quite a commotion in here soon.

But God help them if they wake the baby.

* * *

And there you have it. The little nugget that had to get out of my brain. I feel like these are fewer and farther between. I think I'm in a slump. I need more people to write in the Post-Ep Challenge because maybe it'll inspire me. I need…something. But also, I hope you guys enjoyed this story, and thanks for all the kind words!


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